Weekend rainstorms expected to keep Bay Area soaking on Monday

San Francisco
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Frances Picazo of San Francisco couldn't sleep Saturday night, not with a new storm bearing down on the family home in the city's Mission District.

The house in the 2100 block of Folsom Street is no stranger to high water, not with a street-level garage that flooded numerous times over the years.

Five years ago, rainwater that pooled in the garage damaged her car

“I can’t sleep," she said Saturday night.

"I’m scared, looking out the window, wondering what is going to happen next,” she said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.

City workers had been out earlier in the day to build a temporary plastic barrier to help protect Folsom Street businesses and homes in the notorious flood zone — there's a nightclub, a mortuary and a four-story apartment house nearby.

And the rains came — more than an inch in San Francisco in 24 hours — but the Picazo home and the Rite Spot Cafe and other places in the neighborhood stayed dry.

Flooded streets, toppled trees and power failures were widespread in the Bay Area on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’re a little concerned about flooding,” Mark Strudley, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, told the newspaper on Sunday.

The NWS issued a flash flood watch and a wind advisory for San Francisco and Monterey bays through Monday morning and warned of debris slides in hilly areas.

By late Sunday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. crews had restored power to nearly all of the 50,000 customers who lost it Saturday and were prepared for more emergency repairs if conditions worsened on Monday.

Nearly 5,000 Berkeley and Albany residents lost power Sunday night in one blackout, and 500 people in San Jose spent part of Sunday night without electricity, the newspaper said.

Hundreds of flights into Bay Area airports were delayed or canceled at Bay Area airports over the weekend.

Most areas got between one and three inches of rain over the weekend, with the largest amounts of rain falling in the North Bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The San Lorenzo River, Soquel Creek and Corralitos Creek flooded their banks, forcing many residents to evacuate to Red Cross shelters.

Many roads in Santa Cruz County were closed from mudslides, flooding and downed trees, officials said.

Up to two feet of snow was expected in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which is good news for drinking water but not for drivers facing whiteout conditions on area roads. Motorists were advised to expect possible long delays.

But as mild weather returns to the Bay Area tomorrow and Wednesday, remember more wet weather is expected at the end of the week, the newspaper said.